Pure Cane Sugar - 220 Reviews

Mike and I have been big supporters of College Club Soda. They are a small soda company that is located in Rochester, NY, which is about an hour away from us. They have been very kind to us in the past, including let us run the machines and bottle some pop ourselves. Surprise we didn't kill ourselves or blow up the factory. When they “upped” their game with Fiz and started using cane sugar, excitement was abound on our end. The birch beer and root beer were great, and I had the highest hopes for the cola. I thought I had nothing to fear, until I cracked this bottle open and I was face to face with what is possibly the weakest cola I have ever tasted. It just tasted like a good cola was watered down. I thought that perhaps the batch was off, but a friend confirmed that they had tried it before and that's just how it is. It's disappointing, but hopefully they will tinker with their recipe and all will be well in Western NY's soda world.

While I was drinking this I realized that I had no idea why horseshoes were considered lucky. I assumed it would just be some random tradition that got passed on, with no real meaning. I soon learned the wonderful truth; horseshoes were once used to ward off goblins, or so the story goes. Apparently in Northern Europe and the British Isles goblins ran rampant, but they were afraid of the metal weapons people used against them. Surely it must have been the use of iron that frightened them and not the sharpness of the weapons that could have removed their heads. People started hanging iron horseshoes above their doors to ward off the goblins, since it was iron and resembled the Celtic moon.

So…€¦that was a way more exciting story that I expected. I unfortunately have no iron horseshoes laying around the house so it looks like I am susceptible to a goblin attack. I can only hope that before they tear me asunder that I have time to offer them a soda. I think a couple of sips from this bottle could be just what they need to calm them down. I want to say that this is an average cola that is a little heavy on the caramel side of things, but when I think about it it's must better than store brand, and it also tastes different from Coke or Pepsi. It's undeniably a cola, but with a little twist of its own. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it tastes a little classier than our run of the mill soda, and I enjoy it. I can only hope that the goblins enjoy it as well and maybe then they can fill me in on their side of the story.

Seeing as this originally started off as a sour mix for cocktails before it evolved into a soda the name makes much more sense. A soda named Rummy just seems odd. Actually, even an alcoholic drink named Rummy would seem weird as it's a derogatory word for a drunk. It also seems to insinuate that people are friendlier when they are drunk. I guess that's true for the most part, but when you are on the sober receiving end of that friendliness it tends to be fairly annoying.

Anyway, that whole book by its cover adage and all. This is a fairly mellow grapefruit soda. Normally pop of this variety tends to be pretty strong flavorwise but in here it's pretty chill. It falls more in line with how orange soda isn't really how oranges taste, but it still has a general proximity to the fruit's flavor. This is closer to a real grapefruit than orange is to an orange though. Real fruit flavor or not this is something that I enjoyed. I drank it quicker than I expected to, which is always a sign of a good soda. It may not be the best grapefruit pop I've ever tasted, but I would happily drink more of it.

Lemon? Are you sure? This tastes like carbonated water with ample amounts of sugar. It's very sharp and very sweet and I have made it through three quarters of this bottle and have not "found" the lemon. It's just sugar water like your grandma told you pop/soda was. "You're not drinking that sugar water in my house." she would say. This is that. This is the drink that your grandma told you about. As an adult, I totally agree with your grandma. Your grandma was a smart woman. You were dumb. Face it.

I understand the allure of lower sugar content and saving calories. After decades of ingesting pretty much anything, Americans are finally becoming more health conscious. We're sick of the garbage we eat and drink contributing to our eventual demise. The only problem is that I have yet to come across a low calorie sweetener that hasn't affected the flavor of the beverage it is used in in a negative way. There is a reason people love sugary drinks. They are delicious. Sugar is basically a drug and we all like to get our fix. Drinks made with sucralose, aspartame, and stevia are like giving a junkie a beer when their body just needs a dose of heroin. It just doesn't give you what you want. I admit that the use of monk fruit in here is closer to the end goal, but it's still not there.

I am an all or nothing type of person. I would rather have completely unsweetened seltzer water if cane sugar isn't available. Actually I would prefer that seltzer over even the cane sugar a lot of the time these days. I understand that not everyone is like me, and that others need some sort of “sweetness” even if it isn't the real stuff. While I would never go out of my way to drink this, I would certainly choose a can of 2B Lemon Lime Fizz over a can of Diet 7 Up any day. It may have an aftertaste, but it doesn't taste chemical or unnatural. I'd have to say that the flavor here is probably 50% lemon, 10% lime and 40% monk fruit. If you're okay with those percentages, give it a go.

Is it fair to judge this beverage against other ginger beers when it is meant to be a mixer? I mean it's pretty much just regular old ginger beer with a different marketing scheme behind it. Stoli is a Russian vodka company that is trying to sell the “Moscow Mule” with this beverage. If you don't know (like I didn't) that is vodka, ginger beer and lime juice mixed. Alcoholics prefer vodka when they are trying to be sneaky right? I think I remember that from some television show. I think it had something to do with it not making your breath smell. Either way, if you're going to be a sneaky alcoholic you might as well get some good flavor out of it and a Moscow Mule sounds like it would be delicious, minus the whole vodka thing (I will never understand the allure of the taste of alcohol).

The thing is that I don't think this stands up to other ginger beers. It has a nice ginger flavor, but only the most minimal of burns, which if we're being honest is one of the best parts of this specific soda type. There is also something in it that at first I thought was a zero calorie sweetener, but then realized it was salt. I don't know why it's in here as it has no place in soda. Perhaps it's part of the Mule mix, but if that were the case why wouldn't this be lime ginger beer? Speaking of, now I really want a bottle of that. It sounds delicious. The sale though…€¦yeah it's a bit distracting.

This is good on its own, but not in regards to other ginger beers. I'm sure it would work just perfectly for its intended mixer function. I will never find out though.

You know how you get served a giant mound of pancakes and you pour that golden syrup all over it to give it a nice sticky sweetness that you love so much? Oh you do, well can you explain it to me because I think that it is disgusting. In fact I eat my pancakes completely dry. That's right, not even butter gets spread on my cakes. I'm sure that second fact makes me look like a sociopath of some sort, but I simply do not like syrup.

I've given many maple flavored products a chance over the years and they simply don't do it for me. When I picked this up I thought to myself, “Well, I have to do it.” Lucky for me I only get the faintest, if any, maple flavor in this bottle of root beer. Actually the most notable thing about this soda is that it may be the crispest root beer I have ever tried. It's like someone took a regular root beer and an unflavored soda that was pure crispness and mixed equal parts and put just the tiniest dab of maple syrup in it. The result is that even the root beer flavor isn't very strong, but it's there enough to be pleasant.

This is a different type of soda, and I can appreciate it for that, but if anyone got this and was excited to get some maple flavor they would be sorely disappointed.

I'm deep in the forest. The forest is actually a swamp. The swamp is actually made up of soda. I want to enjoy this experience and get lost in it all, but there is a problem. The problem is monk fruit. I don't know how it actually grows, but for the sake of this review it is covering the surface of the swamp a la cranberries. This is causing a problem because for the life of me I can't get past the monk fruit to figure out if this is a cherry cola, or just a plain ole' cherry soda. I'm pretty sure it's cherry cola, but nothing on the cane denotes that. I'm not sure if it's the taste of the monk fruit that is giving it a quasi-taste of cola, or if that flavor is distracting from the pure cola taste. This soda is floating in some weird dream state limbo where it doesn't know what it wants to be. I can't say that I really enjoyed it, but at the same time I also did not dislike it. It is low in sugar, thus low in calories, which more likely than not is going to put it at some sort of disadvantage taste wise. I really just want to know what the flavor is supposed to be. I feel like that would make it easier to form a more solid opinion.

Here is a brief story of me buying a handful of 2B flavors. I was somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the Midwest. I was as central as one can be. We had a ridiculously long drive to get to a show and we stopped in a town to eat, which to the best of my searching had nothing quick that was suitable for vegetarians except for French fries, onion rings and ice cream. I'm no fool and knew that on such an empty stomach that anything deep fried would destroy my stomach, so I of course got ice cream like a champ. In said horrible town we stopped to get gas as well and I found these cans in the cooler. I grabbed this vanilla one, and let the others be. Then as I approached the counter as say a mixed case of them for 50 cents each. In the cooler they were listed as $1.89 or something like that, so I grabbed the other flavors, because a deal is a deal and I have a duty to report to you, our readers. When the woman rung me out the vanilla rang up as full price. When I questioned her, so said only the room temperature ones were on sale. Does that make sense to anyone? They are the same product. They obviously paid the same amount for them. Also, the cooler is running the same amount whether they are in it or not, so it's not costing them any more money. I swapped my cold one out for a counter one, paid the woman and off we went. There's no real point to that other than me pointing out that if you're not in a bigger city the Midwest is a weird place.

Now, on to the soda; the entire shtick of this company is that they use monk fruit in combination with cane sugar to lower the sugar content by 80%. I've had too many diet drinks lately and have been putting this off because of it. I have to admit it's not bad. It has a little strange aftertaste from the monk fruit, but the “diet” flavor is not there. This is one of the strongest vanilla beverages I have ever come across. I'm venturing a guess that a good portion of the population has snuck a taste out of a bottle of extract of vanilla at some point in their childhood, with horrible results. It just smells so good, but it should never be tasted in that form. This tastes like a healthy dose of that was put into a generic soda water. It's kind of strange because overall it's a fairly light beverage, but the vanilla is so strong that you expect it to be creamy. It's a light, diet cream soda that doesn't' taste overly diet. It wouldn't be a go-to for me, but it falls under the category of I would happily drink it if it were served to me.

Today on “Great Moments When Your Friends Thought They Were Hysterical” we will explore the time in the late 90's during a moment of silence, on a long drive when someone felt the need to proclaim, “Ford Aspire, I bet it aspires to be a better car.” For the record the silence was apparently only uncomfortable for this would be comedian. The silence that followed the joke was uncomfortable for everyone.

That dumb joke would never apply to this beverage, because in the world of sports drinks where else is there to go? This is delicious, it is functional, and it is low in calories without tasting like diet death. This has the most accurate cherry flavor that I have ever come across outside of straight cherry juice. It doesn't taste like syrup, medicine or candy. It tastes like cherry juice with a few assorted berries thrown in for good measure.

If you've gone through life thinking that Gatorade was the pinnacle of sports drinks, and why bother with other brands, then you are in for a wild ride. This is the same basic concept as those beverages, but presented in a natural healthier way. It's chock full of electrolytes as well as antioxidants, B vitamins and minerals. Suck on that status quo of sports drinks.

At our show in Atlanta I went on an adventure with fellow soda enthusiast/bassist Dakota Floyd to find the elusive Brood Soda. We walked about a mile through somewhat rain to get to the store only to find that they no longer carry it. Luckily it wasn't a complete bust and I stumbled upon this beverage. I was bummed that they didn't have Brood, and I wasn't even looking forward to this, but was it ever a treat. It ended up being the best thing I have drank in quite some time.

This is a watermelon agua fresca that actually tastes like watermelon and not a gross fake candy. It's really smooth, but the flavor is so perfect and specific that it tricks my mouth into thinking that I can make out the texture of perfectly wipe watermelon (aka the only time that this specific fruit it truly great). The ginger and lime are there, but not as strong and merely serve to make the watermelon shine more brightly. The lime gets stronger in the aftertaste, but it never overpowers the melon. This is the perfect beverage for hot humid weather. Califia Farms has transitioned from coffee drinks into wonderful juice.

Coffee is certainly easy to make at home. Iced coffee isn't even that much of a pain it just requires some anticipation as to when you will want to drink it. All of that is out the window though when you wake up and it's suddenly 90+ degrees when you were wearing a hoodie the night before. At times like these you want nothing running in your home that is giving off any sort of heat. All you want is the refrigerator, air conditioning and fans. When it's this hot you also can't count on your brain functioning properly for preparation. These are the moments when the world should count their lucky stars that cans of iced coffee exist and can be purchased on the cheap. When this is the case it's High Brew to the rescue.

I personally think that this is the best product in their line. It is just cold brewed coffee with the tiniest amount of cane sugar (1g). The sugar is barely there in the flavor it just takes away a slight amount of the bitter edge of the coffee. I appreciate the lack of “creamer” in here, dairy or no. It's no secret that I am not coffee's biggest supporter, but the times when I do drink it I prefer it black (& bold). I don't have a refined enough palate to distinguish between blends of coffee, but they use Arabica beans to create this and I find it pleasant enough. It's true that there is nothing really special about this beverage, but there's not supposed to be. It's the base version that all that fancy garbage is built from and a lot of people like to keep it simple and I'm there with them a lot of the time.

I often find myself wondering if this website is actually of any use to anyone. I'm fairly certain that no one reads it religiously, but anyone coming for actual input on drinks is either met with ridiculous fake story/reviews or they have to deal with our strange tastes. Let's take this bottle of Bedford's ginger beer for instance. A normal human would probably drink this and think that it has a strong burn to it. To me it's very weak. Sure there is some burn there, but it doesn't do what I want/need it to. I want there to be pain and discomfort when I drink a ginger beer. I want it to be hard to make it through an entire bottle. Could get through multiple bottles of this and I would only stop because of sweetness, not the burn. To me this tastes like the company took a great ginger beer and mixed 2/3 of it with 1/3 generic soda. It's just a tad too sweet for what it is, and it takes away from what I love about this type of soda. Others would probably find this just the way they like it. I rarely find anything just the way I like it.

Why aren't ginger ales more popular in bars? I mean you occasionally come across some bottled root beers in watering holes, and the west coast drinkers seem to have a love for ginger beer, but I've never come across bottled ginger ale when I'm awkwardly in a bar because it's where my friends wanted to hang out. I would really like to, and that may be solely because it has the word “ale” in its name. truth be told I would take a root or ginger beer over a ginger ale any day of the week, but sometimes it's nice to have choices, and my brain tells me that it should be served.

Bedford's makes a ginger ale that would be perfect for such a scenario. It's much better than any ginger ale that has ever come from a dispenser gun, and anyone who says that bartenders “mix” ginger ale is really good, is a crazy person. This soda has a nice label that would fit in perfectly with those of real brews, and it really does taste great. It has a different sweetness than your Canada Dry or Schweppes. It tastes like it had the same general taste that those sodas do, but that they slowly swapped out ingredients one by one with those of a higher quality. The result is a very slightly new twist on an old favorite.

If you need me I'll be nursing a bottle of this against the wall, not talking to anyone and pretending that I am enjoying myself.

Sometimes you come across a beverage that sounds delicious, but you know it's not the proper time to drink it. So you store it away in your fridge until you feel the time is right. When you know the time has finally come, perhaps you want to have some buttered apple toast before you start into the drink. If that time ever comes in your life, take extra care when taking the butter out of the fridge, or you may just knock the bottle of the beverage you've been waiting for and it will explode all over the floor. If you are lucky then the drink you had been so patient about will be a bottle of Califa Farms Mocha Mexica Cold Brew Coffee. The reason you would be lucky is that even though you will have quite the mess on your hands your kitchen will be filled with the wonderful aroma of coffee, chocolate and cinnamon.

My annoyance level was through the roof when this spilled everywhere, but I was able to save about 1/3 of the bottle, and that little bit that I was able to drink made the entire ordeal worth it (well maybe not). It's no secret that I am not a big coffee fan, but when you do it Mexican style with chocolate, cinnamon and chili in it; it's an entirely different story. This is a drink and a half. It's more like chocolate almond milk with coffee and spices added than a coffee drink, but that's probably why I like it so much. It's very smooth with just the right amount of heat from the spices. I've had good Mexican chocolate and I've had bad Mexican chocolate and this, if it were in bar form would be the best of them all.

Now that I've enjoyed what little beverage did not end up on my kitchen floor, I should go clean again to make sure I got it all. No one wants ants.

This is not an original thought, but think of the world 40 or so years from now. A good portion of the elderly population will be covered in tattoos, but more interesting than that is the idea of a 90 year old driving around in a car with a bass system jut bumping some sort of hip hop. It's such a ridiculously wonderful thought that is almost certain to become a reality, well that is unless the world ends, which wouldn't be a shock either. I'm just going to sit back and laugh about this as I sip on this bottle of Hip Hop Pop. I'm not sure what exactly relates it to the hip hop community, but it's fun to say. Go ahead, do it a loud. I dare you.

When I drank this I was all sorts of confused. I thought it tasted like a lighter Mr Pibb that was heavy on cherry. A friend thought that it was just a unique cherry soda. Neither of us had any inkling that this was actually supposed to be a berry cola, that was mostly raspberry. When I think about that description I can make out a faint cola taste and the berry is definitely noticeable, but I still get that Pibb taste, but better than the real Pibb. It's a mystery bottle and apparently everyone gets something different out of it. The nice thing is that everyone seemed to enjoy what they received. I wonder what flavors grace the tongue of Nelly when he drinks it.

A lot happened in 1966. There were Vietnam protests, cigarettes had to start having warning labels, and the Moors Murderers were jailed in the UK forever influencing a young boy names Steven Patrick Morrissey. All of these interesting things happened that year, but that is not what Bruce Cost is celebrating with this soda. What all rant party hats and streamers are for is that they have created a soda that has only 66 calories, without the aid of artificial sweeteners or stevia/erythritol. This Brooklyn based company has come up with a mixture of cane sugar and monk fruit extract that gives the soda sweetness, without tasting gross and diet. Monk fruit has been used for centuries in Chinese medicine, and Bruce Cost thought to try it in their sodas.

I have to say the results are interesting. This tastes much better than most low calorie sodas, there is no doubt, it just has a very strange, distinct type of sweetness to it. Actually it tastes like someone was at a magical fountain machine that served Bruce Cost's regular ginger ale, and some other stuff and mixed some flavors, Laser Tag style. It really tastes like two different sodas, one normal and one weirdly diet, were combined and didn't really combine into something new. Unfortunately the delicious ginger soda was the weaker of the two in the grouping. If you're looking to cut back on the calories and love yourself some ginger soda, you're not going to find anything better on the market. It still feels like it could use some improvement though. Now, if you're looking for me I'll be wandering around Brooklyn, searching for that elusive fountain soda machine that I mentioned. I bet it only exists in my mind.

Last week we received an email from Bruce Cost telling us they had some new flavors and that they wanted to send them to us. Moments later I received a message from Mike that simply said, “Bruce Cost. Finally. We've made it.” The man had a point. Bruce Cost makes some of, if not the best ginger ales on the market and getting acknowledged by them felt like we were doing something right. We're nothing but honest here at Thirsty Dudes and we are terrible writers. A lot of the time our reviews have very little to do with the actual beverage we are writing about and more about some tangent that is in our brain. We love doing the site though, so we keep writing, more for ourselves than anything else. When a company we love thinks that our ramblings are worth their time, we really appreciate it. More than that we appreciate a good ginger based beverage, and this is beyond good.

This is listed as a “BC Limited” soda, so unfortunately it looks like it's not going to become part of their regularly available sodas, which is a shame because it is fantastic. Take a base of their flagship ginger ale, which is made with 100% fresh ginger and has a nice little kick to it, that borders a tame ginger beer, and add some blood orange and lemon juice to it. It's as simple as that and there is magic in simplicity. Perhaps they could use a little less lemon, as it takes away a little from the glory that is blood orange juice, but other than that this is perfect. It is first and foremost a ginger soda and the other flavors are there as secondary notes, the way a good ginger ale should be.

At first I thought I was bummed that it wasn't a ginger beer and didn't have more of a burn, but if that had been the case a lot of the flavor would have been lost, and no one wants that. You have limited time people, get out there and scour your local bodegas and stock up. Who knows when you'll come across it again?

Lemon pop; It's not that much different than a Sprite with a bit of mint in it. I mean, that is a different product in itself but it's lightly mint. Don't think that you're brushing your teeth and then rinsing with Sprite. If you do, you should be put in the mental hospital because that's absolutely insane.

This is actually pretty refreshing; lightly lemon, lightly mint and mediumly sweet. It's not "over" anything and is small enough to never be overwhelming. I don't know if I would drink it again because it was almost so subtle that it was nothing special. It was good, don't get me wrong, but it was so "regular" that it was just kind of another drink.

I don't want people to get sore at me. This is different. It deserves mentioning. It was made and is an accomplishment. It's good. Try it. Like it. Share it.

“Gambler. Lawman. Soda Enthusiast.” I'm pretty sure that is the inscription on Wyatt Earp's tombstone (full pun intended). It's commonly known that when the shootout at OK Corral was going on Earp called for a time out, Zach Morris style, then he handed everyone involved a nice cold bottle of sarsaparilla, which they enjoyed until they returned to their bloodbath. No one really knows how he kept the soda cold, or where he had it stored, but everyone involved recalled that it was very thoughtful and it really hit the spot at that exact moment.

The Earp family has now aged a few generations, and have decided to bottle and sell their own sarsaparilla. Their wares are the smoothest sarsaparilla I have ever tasted. It has the creaminess of a root beer and not the quasi-harsh sharpness that one equates to this flavor of soda. The general sarsaparilla flavor is there, but it just doesn't have the bite that I want. I did enjoy the soda, but it didn't blow me away like a lot of sarsaparilla does. I feel like I've typed out that word far too many times now. Sarsaparilla.